Lisa Gelobter

Lisa Gelobter (born 1971) is a computer scientist, technologist and chief executive. She was the Chief Digital Service Officer for the United States Department of Education. Lisa is also the computer scientist who developed the animation used to create GIFs, forever changing the way we text and tweet.^[1]

She has spent 25 years in the software industry and invented products that have been used by millions of people. She has worked on several pioneering Internet technologies, including Shockwave, Hulu, and creation of web animation and online video – Brightcove and Joost.^[2]

In 2016, Gelobter founded and took on the role of Chief Executive Officer of tEQuitable, a start-up that provides an independent and confidential platform to address issues of bias, harassment, and discrimination in the workplace.^[3] She raised more than $2 million for tEQuitable, becoming one of the only thirty-four Black women to ever raise $1 million or more in venture capital.^[4]

Personal Life[]

Her father was Jewish and from Poland, and her mother was African - American and from the Caribbean. She graduated from Brown University in 1991 at the age of 20 with a computer science degree with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning.^[5]

Career[]

Gelobter has an expansive background in strategy development, business operations, user-centered design, product management, and engineering.^[6]

She served as Chief Digital Service Officer for the United States Department of Education during the Presidency of Barack Obama.^{[7][8][9][10]} In the position, she helped to improve HealthCare.gov, reducing the number of individual pages and overall application time.^[11] She led the team that built the United States Department of Education College Scorecard, which helped college students make sensible choices about college investments.^[12][13][14] She joined the advisory board of Bridge Foundry.^[15]

Prior to public service, Gelobter was the Chief Digital Officer for BET Networks and was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu. She also worked on Shockwave, a multimedia platform used for video games.^[16] She was incremental in the creation of Shockwave and oversaw the product release cycle for Shockwave, coded ActiveX control for the player, coordinated the engineering transition among many other things.^[17]

In 2016, Gelobter founded tEquitable, an independent, confidential platform to address issues of bias, discrimination and harassment in the workplace.^{[18][19][20][21][22]} She raised more than $2 million for the platform.^[9] Her platform is a 3rd-party, tech-enabled Ombuds platform; a confidential sounding board for employees to address issues and for companies to make workplaces more inclusive.^[23]

She is also a former member of the New York Urban League STEM Advisory Board^[24] and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People.^[25]

References[]